[justjim]

Houses were certainly different “In the good ol’ Days”. I grew up in a small Midwest town. After the war, my Dad and Mom found a small four room house that they bought on contract for $1,800.00. Dad said houses were very hard to find in those days. No air conditioner, no bathroom (outhouse) and heat was provided by a coal stove. Hey, we had electricity and city water. I remember the “Scavenger man” came once a month in our town and cleaned out the privy (Outhouse). Dad was a coal miner and he was pretty handy. By the time I was 6 years old, we had a bathroom, detached garage and the attic was turned into 2 bedrooms. Mom had a gas stove to cook on but since Dad was a coal miner we still used coal to heat the house. Wow! On the really hot summer nights, Mom made us kids a “pallet” in the downstairs living room and we had fans that kept us from getting too hot. Finances were tight when miners went out on strike for better pay and safer working conditions. I think that I was in 8th grade before we got a window unit AC and a thirty five foot tower to pull-in some snow screen television from 100 miles away. Finally, Dad put in a gas furnace, but didn’t have central air until after I left the nest. Yep, those were the good ol’ days for real homes. Oh, We had a couple of old Plymouths and a Chrysler as we were growing up. When I was a sophomore in High School, Dad’s coal mine closed but that is another story.